A systems-based approach to assessing leadership styles in engineers

A systems-based approach to assessing leadership styles in engineers

BYOlatoyosi Olud´e–AfolabiB.S., University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1998M.S., State University of New York, Binghamton, 2003

DISSERTATIONSubmitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements forthe degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Systems Science

in the Graduate School ofBinghamton UniversityState University of New York

2010

UMI Number: 3408995

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 Copyright by Olatoyosi Olud´e–Afolabi 2010

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Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Systems Science

in the Graduate School ofBinghamton UniversityState University of New York

2010April 08, 2010

Prof Eileen C Way, ChairDepartment of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering,

Binghamton University

Prof Harold W Lewis III, Graduate Chair

Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering,

Prof Bahgat Sammakia, External Examiner

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Binghamton University

There is a widely recognized gap in the skill set of newly graduated engineers andthe needs and expectations of industry The Accreditation Board of Engineering andTechnology (ABET) has taken steps to address this gap by adjusting its criteria foraccrediting engineering programs

In particular, ABET has specified program outcomes that address technical skills

in relation to the ability to function on teams, the ability to communicate effectivelyand an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility However, there arestill gaps not directly addressed by ABET, gaps involving leadership skills, which aredefined as a combination of leadership terms These leadership terms are communica-tion, motivation, team–building, visionary, coaching & mentoring, time management,listening and innovation This research explores the key components of leadership toengineering academia and industry using system techniques that classifies the differ-ent definitions of leadership

Through the use of text mining, data was collected from industry trade journalsthen fuzzy similarity was used to classify different terms employed in the definition

of leadership Finally, the results suggest that the more terms used by journalswere classified by engineering academia as having more leadership terms in definingleadership when compared to industry

To Mark, JoAnne, JoElle and Jolla Afolabi.

I am expressing my profound gratitude to Professor Eileen Way, my advisor, for hersuggestions and constant support during my research She has been a mentor and acoach throughout my graduate career Without her, I would be languishing on my

adventure to knowledge Advisors like her are extremely few to find.

In addition, I will like to thank Professor Hal Lewis for his support, teaching andencouragement in all of his classes I appreciate his persistence in my learning, heimparted confidence about being a doctoral student

I am also thankful to Professors Shelley Dionne and Don Spangler for their guidancethrough the early years of chaos and confusion They taught me the importance ofleadership and the appropriate use of leadership skills to solve problems Definitely,the adventure to knowledge is worth the effort

The Clifford D Clark Fellowship, awarded to me for the period 2002–2007, was crucial

to the successful completion of this research Without this financial support researchlike this would have been impossible

I am grateful to my parents and siblings for everything I will use this opportunity

to express gratitude to my friends, mentors and in–laws who supported me through

my difficult years to complete this dissertation I will like to remember my sistersand mother-in-law, who taught me love, courage, and confidence and without them Iwouldn’t be this successful Last but not the least, I will like to thank my daughtersand my better half for their great sense of humor The adventure is an excitement

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

1 Introduction

1.1 Problem Definition—Assessing the Key

x

xi

1

Components of Leadership in Engineers 2

1.2 Theoretical Framework 5

1.3 Research Objective 5

1.3.1 Techniques 6

1.4 Assumptions 7

1.5 Dissertation Overview …… 7

2 Literature Review 9 2.1 Introduction 9

2.1.1 The Leadership Theory 10

2.1.2 Required Leadership Skill Set for New Engineers 11

2.1.3 Leadership and Management Roles 17

2.1.4 Important Elements for Engineering Definition of Leadership & Why 18

2.1.5 What does leadership mean in an engineering context? 19

2.1.6 Ideal Concepts of Leadership based on Research Experts 20

2.1.7 Actual Data Concepts vs Ideal Concepts of Leadership 25

2.2 Overview of Classification Methods for Leadership 29

2.2.1 Overview of Text Mining 29

2.2.2 Overview of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) 31

2.2.3 Overview of Fuzzy Set Theory 37

2.2.4 The Value of Fuzzy Set Theory 38

2.2.5 Overview of Fuzzy Similarity 42

2.2.6 The Value of Fuzzy Similarity 44

2.2.7 Applications of Fuzzy Similarity Measures 46

2.3 Overview of Data Collection Methods for

Leadership Analysis 50

2.3.1 Types of Data Collection Techniques 50

2.3.2 Direct Observation versus Surveys 51

2.3.3 Content Analysis 53

2.3.4 Espoused Theory of Action 53

2.4 Chapter Summary 55

3 Methodology 56 3.1 Introduction 56

3.2 Research Design 58

3.2.1 Level 1: Data Collection Process 58

3.2.2 Level 2: Collected Data 64

3.2.3 Level 3: Fuzzy System 65

3.2.4 Level 4: Analysis of Result 68

3.2.5 Level 5: Conclusions 69

3.3 Software Design—Engineering Leadership Fuzzy System (ELFS) 69

3.4 Procedural steps of Classifying the definitions of leadership 70

3.5 Prototype of Engineering Leadership Fuzzy System (ELFS) 71

3.6 Text–Mining Tool—YALE 73

3.6.1 YALE: Mapping Ideal Concepts of Leadership 73

3.7 Chapter Summary 76

4 Results 77 4.1 Introduction 77

4.2 Five–Stage Analysis System 78

4.2.1 Stage I: Ideal Concepts of Leadership based on Research Experts 78 4.2.2 Stage II: Mapping Ideal Concepts of Leadership 79

4.2.3 Stage III: Frequency of each Ideal Concept per Document 79

4.2.4 Stage IV: Measure of Importance of each Ideal Concept 82

4.2.5 Stage V: Actual Data Concepts vs Ideal Concepts of Leadership 83 4.2.6 Summary of the Five–Stage System 83

4.3 Analysis of Results 84

4.3.1 Reliability of Collected Data 84

4.3.2 Reliability of Classified Data 86

4.4 Results Summary 87

4.4.1 How does the definition of leadership and management in En-gineering Academia differ from Industry? 87

4.4.2 Do the leadership skill sets relate to management skills? 90

4.5 Chapter Summary 92

5 Conclusion 94 5.1 Introduction 94

5.2 Research 95

5.3 Contributions & Recommendations 98

5.4 Benefits of Research 99

5.5 Limitations of Research 100

5.6 Future Research 101

5.7 Chapter Summary 102

A ABET’s Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs 104

List of Figures

2.1 Leadership & Management Skill Ratings [Adapted from AMA Research

(2003)] 25

2.2 Ideal Concepts of Management 27

2.3 Ideal Concepts of Leadership 27

2.4 Partial Management Concepts 28

2.5 Partial Leadership Concepts 28

2.6 Backpropagation Network 36

2.7 Knowledge–based classification [Adapted from Zimmerman(2001)] 48

3.1 Project Data Flowchart 57

3.2 Engineering Leadership Corpus 64

3.3 Data from YALE software 66

3.4 Fuzzy Linguistic Variables 68

3.5 Screen Shot of Engineering Leadership Fuzzy System (ELFS) 70

4.1 Document File Distribution (In Files) 80

4.2 Document File Distribution (In Pages) 81

4.3 Leadership and Management in Academia vs Industry 88

4.4 Engineering Academia, Industry and Total Classification in Compari-son 90

4.5 Engineering Academia, Industry and Overall Level of Importance in Comparison 91

List of Tables

2.1 Leadership Skills—[Adapted from AMA Research (2003)] 19

2.2 Survey Data for Leadership [Adapted from Harper Jr (2003)] 23

2.3 Survey Data for People Management & Development [Adapted from Harper Jr (2003)] 23

2.4 Survey Data for Teamwork [Adapted from Harper Jr (2003)] 24

2.5 Survey Data for Creativity & Innovation [Adapted from Harper Jr (2003)] 24

3.1 Database Abbreviations 62

3.2 Documents Found using Grokker 62

3.3 Documents Found using Factiva 62

3.4 Data Concept Classification 71

3.5 Sample Results Data 72

3.6 Sample Data for Analysis 72

3.7 Concept Mapping of Leadership & Management 74

4.1 Leadership Ideal Concepts–Summary Statistics 81

4.2 Management Ideal Concepts–Summary Statistics 82

4.3 Descriptive Statistics–Leadership Concepts 85

4.4 Descriptive Statistics–Fuzzy Concepts 86

4.5 Document Classification regarding Key Concepts of Leadership 89

4.6 Level of Importance regarding Key Concepts of Leadership 89

Chapter 1

Introduction

The American industry needs leadership to remain competitive in today’s globaleconomy; furthermore, the industry needs risk takers, change masters, big thinkers,good communicators and other important qualities to stay competitive (Farr, Waleshand Forsythe, 1997; Farr and Brazil, 2009) The skills to show these qualities are

regarded as leadership skills, which Engineers frequently downplay as soft people

skills in comparison to the hard math and technical skills that are needed in theengineering curriculum

However, in this competitive environment, business and industry demand

exception-ally trained engineers that have leadership skills Engineers study for years to

mas-ter the technical skills required in their respective fields to design and develop newproducts and improve processes, but often do not master leadership skills because

“ leadership is rarely addressed in formal engineering/engineering technology cation programs” (Summers, Davis and Tomovic, 2004)

edu-There is a widely recognized gap in the skill set of new engineers, according to the

American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM, 1995), which reported sevenareas including leadership as a “perceived gap in the value of the organization versuspreparedness for new BS engineers” (Summers et al., 2004) However, “the areawhere the perceived gap was the greatest was leadership” (Farr et al., 1997; Summers

et al., 2004) Similarly, in order to meet industry needs, the American Society forEngineering Education has found that leadership education in engineering programsneed to be improved to stay competitive in today’s global economy (ASEE, 1994),hence the need of leadership skills in engineers Russell and Yao concluded that

“ that an engineer is hired for her or his technical skills, fired for poor people skillsand promoted for leadership and management skills” (Russell and Yao, 1997)

Organizations such as the U S Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology(ABET) has held engineering schools accountable for producing functioning engineerswho possess leadership skills through the introduction of the Engineering Criteria

2000 (EC2000) i.e Accreditation by assessment (ABET, 2000a,b) In addition, the

National Academy of Engineers (NAE) has established funding for sparking innovativespirit in both faculty and engineering students (National Academy of Engineering ofAcademies, 2003)

Components of Leadership in Engineers

In an attempt to improve engineering programs, Pennsylvania State University (PSU)Prados et al (2005); Volkwein et al (2004) has designed surveys (see Appendix B

on page 127) to assess the skills of entry-level engineers due to the fact that ABETrequires leadership skills (see Appendix A on page 104) However, assessing the keycomponents of leadership involves defining, measuring and designing both the teach-ing and assessment programs to analyze the critical dimensions of leadership in en-gineers As Kotterman (2006), pointed out, leadership cannot be assessed, measured

or tested if it cannot be defined

A major problem in improving leadership education in engineering programs is

defin-ing the term leadership since there are “approximately three hundred and fifty

def-initions of leadership [that] have been generated over the last thirty years” (Bennisand Nanus, 1985) Thus, “developing a concise definition of leadership for engineeringmanagers appears to be a difficult task” (Davis, 2004; Summers et al., 2004)

Another problem with improving leadership education in an engineering program isassessing the defined leadership terms Leadership assessment reflected in test scores

or in a student’s performance is based on subjective human values and people havedifferent values and judgements, which often leads to different evaluation criteria,ultimately resulting in different final assessments (Loadman and Thomas, 2000)

However, before assessing the definition of leadership, the critical dimensions of ership, which are subjective, needs to be measured Based on this measurement,programs for teaching leadership skills can be designed and finally, an assessmentprogram can be created to measure the accomplishment of leadership skills in stu-dents

lead-Measuring the definition of leadership that has roughly three hundred and fifty initions is obviously challenging Also, assessing an education program based onthis measurement is a daunting task; nonetheless, in order to improve engineeringprograms this challenging problem was divided into four phases, as follows:

def-Phase I: Identifying the definition of leadership in engineering

Phase II: Measuring the definition of leadership in engineering

Phase III: Designing the teaching programs for the leadership dimensions and

Phase IV: Designing an assessment program to measure the achievement of the

critical dimensions of leadership in students

Among the four phases identified earlier, this research will be focused on Phase I

As Kotterman (2006) pointed out, leadership cannot be assessed, measured or tested

if it cannot be defined Identifying the definition of leadership in engineering is thefoundation to solving this challenging task

In addition, identifying the definition of leadership will recognize and classify the keycomponents of leadership in engineers In order to classify the definition of leadership,exploring different classification methods such as neural network, fuzzy logic, andfuzzy similarity can be utilized One of these classification methods will be used to

analyze the critical aspects of the definition of leadership.

Furthermore, identifying the critical dimensions of leadership involves finding answers

to questions such as “What does leadership mean in an Engineering Context?, How

are the leadership skill sets of an engineer defined?, What specific skills are needed by industry?, Are the critical aspects of the definition of leadership actually management skills or leadership skills?, and Do the critical aspects of the definition of leadership include management skills?.”

to the leadership skills needed that industry communicates in trade journals Thiscomparison is determined using a subjective and approximate reasoning approachcalled fuzzy similarity (Biswas, 1995; Tversky, 1977; Vosniadou and Ortony, 1989;Zimmermann, 2001)

The main objective of this dissertation is to determine the key components of ship for engineering academia and industry and also to explore different classificationmethods that can be used such as neural network, fuzzy logic and fuzzy similarity toanalyze the critical aspects of the definition of leadership

leader-In order to explore the key components of leadership needed for engineering academia

and industry, the following questions will guide the research

1 What does leadership mean in an engineering context?

2 How does the definition of leadership in engineering academia differ from dustry?

in-3 How are the leadership skill sets of an entry-level engineer defined?

4 Do the above leadership skill sets relate to management skills?

Implementation of the techniques used to attain the main objectives of this research

is discussed below

The following are techniques that will be used in this research

• Definition of Leadership—Different definitions of leadership are explored in both

engineering and industry literature In addition, the key concepts of ship are explored utilizing research surveys (American Management Associa-tion, 1999; Carr et al., 2005; Davis, 2004; Kerzner, 2001; Summers et al., 2004;Thompson, 2004)

leader-• Text Mining—Used to extract meaningful concepts from raw documents,

con-cepts and higher–level entities are used to support a range of knowledge covery in database operations on documents and finally, the frequency of co–occurrence of concepts is used to provide concept linking (Feldman, 2003; Ye,2003)

dis-• Fuzzy Similarity—models the theories of similarities including the analysis of

connotative meanings Fuzzy similarity also models the human cognitive cess using approximate reasoning and linguistic representation (Biswas, 1995;Tversky, 1977; Turksen and Zhong, 1988; Vosniadou and Ortony, 1989; Zim-mermann, 2001)

• The frequency of each word in a document is related to the level of importance

of each word in a document Analysis of results was based on the level ofimportance

• The unit of measurement is the number of documents i.e number of files

• Selection of documents were random, i.e representation of documents was

random

Chapter 2 reviews the literature concerning key concepts of defining leadership Itdiscusses the applications and value of fuzzy logic and fuzzy similarities

Chapter 3 introduces the methods used in classifying the definition of the key concepts

of leadership and finding the fuzzy similarity of these key concepts

Chapter 4 presents the result summaries and the findings from researched data todetermine the key concepts of leadership

Chapter 5 completes the research by pointing out significant contributions, benefitsand limitations of the research, and finally concludes with future research.

Critical aspects of the definition of leadership in engineers involves vagueness andsubjectivity, which leads to analyzing the theoretical concepts of systems methodol-ogy This chapter discusses the value of fuzzy set theory and fuzzy similarity In order

to clarify implicit theories of leadership that academia and industry have, data lection techniques needs to be investigated This chapter concludes with an overview

col-of text–mining including its approaches and drawbacks

2.1.1 The Leadership Theory

The definition of leadership has been evolving because according to Bennis and Nanus

in 1985, they reported that “approximately three hundred and fifty definitions ofleadership have been generated over the last thirty years” (Bennis and Nanus, 1985)

It has been defined in terms of traits, behaviors, role relationships and occupation of

an administrative position (Yukl, 2002; Daft, 2002) Examples of such definitions are(Yukl, 2002):

• Leadership is “the process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement” (Rauch and Behling, 1984, p.46)

• “Leadership is the process of making sense of what people are doing together so that people will understand and be committed” (Drath and Palus, 1994, p.4)

• “Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which things can be accomplished” (Richards and Engle,

under-No matter the discipline, a leader must demonstrate skills that create a motivatingenvironment that reinforces and energizes follower commitment (Blank, 2001).

In 1997, National Science Foundation conducted a study with nearly two million

working engineers with degrees The results showed that 82% of all trained neers were employed by business and industry and 58% of the 82% trained engineersdeveloped their careers in management, sales and administration (Summers et al.,2004)

engi-Evidently, engineers are working in business and leaderships roles, which they werenot prepared or trained for and a large portion of the 49% interviewed faced leadershipand business challenges (Summers et al., 2004) Based on these challenges, NormanAugustine, co-chair of the National Advisory Council pointed out that “ engineerslack the ability to communicate” (Augustine, 1994) The ability to communicate

and other leadership skills are regarded as soft skills The reasons for the lack of

communication is discussed later

Beverly Davis (Davis, 2004), a professor of Organizational Leadership in the School ofTechnology at Purdue University, pointed out that possessing soft engineering skillsreferred to Augustine as the combination of leadership skills, soft skills and engineer-ing skills, will help in the transition from student to professional These soft skills areoften regarded as unimportant in an engineering discipline which is heavily reliant

on math and science As the Program Chair for the ASEE Manufacturing Division,

she found out the need for the following skills in an initial job of the engineeringdiscipline, which are discussed below (Davis, 2004):

• Communication—An ability to communicate effectively.

• Creativity—An ability to apply creativity in the design of systems,

compo-nents, or processes appropriate to program objectives

• Respect for diversity—A respect for diversity and a knowledge of

contemporary professional, societal and global issues

• Ethics—an ability to understand professional, ethical, and social

responsibilities

• Lifelong Learning—A recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage

in lifelong learning

• Team Membership—An ability to function effectively on teams i.e a team

with complementary skills committed to a common purpose, performance goals,and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable

Communication

Is extremely important because of the growing complexity of systems and the newcross-functional teams in engineering Many employers have numerous reasons for theneed of great communication skills such as the ability to explain what an individual isdoing throughout a project to people who are not engineers Employers also require

communication skill in order to get people involved in the process, and also possessthe ability to work in the early stages of a project and obtain feedback from variousteams impacted by the potential changes (Davis, 2004).

In summary, since “ successful leaders work hard to make [relationship–building]look effortless” (Nyman, 2006), communication is a tool used to achieve such a success

Davis (2004) noted that “a recent study conducted with 301 former engineering uates from Southern Illinois University–Carbondale, found that listening was themost important non-technical skill needed to function in team–based work environ-ments While decision–making ranked second, verbal communication was rankedthird in perceived importance for graduate skills.” To show the importance of com-munication skill, Dr Jerry Bischof, director of nuclear engineering for DominionResources visited an engineering school for an on–campus interview to fill ten posi-tions He discovered that 50% of the one–hundred resum´es were rejected for lack ofcommunication skills (Davis, 2004)

grad-Creativity

Employers expect new graduates to be innovative and creative The reason is becauseengineers will need to lead “ creative consensus–building tasks regardless of the dis-cipline.” Since teamwork is the norm, creativity will be required for any engineeringposition in today’s global workforce For example, if a manufacturing engineer grad-uate is involved with the production of goods, the generation of knowledge and thecreative skills needed to generate new knowledge allows for manufacturing to compete

in a global marketplace (Davis, 2004).

The ability to explain an individuals’ actions and the process of making key decisions,the ability to make an oral presentation to a group of clients or co–workers, arenot sufficient without the ability to lead creative consensus building teams Thedevelopment of a higher–level communication skill, in addition to the technical skillsneeded to function effectively makes the student a well–rounded entry–level employee(Davis, 2004)

Respect for Diversity

Corporations are noticing that investing in diversity is a social responsibility because

of the global work place Today’s workforce is diverse in many ways For example,IBM sets the pace in diversity In addition to race, gender and physical abilities, IBMdefined workforce diversity, which includes human differences such as culture, lifestyle,age, religion, economic status, sexual orientation, and marital status (M2Press Wire,2003) IBM contends that workforce diversity includes everyone serving as a bridgebetween the workplace and the marketplace (M2Press Wire, 2003)

No wonder Loria Yeadon, a patent attorney, advised that diversity is a critical elementnecessary for success today because there is the need to work with and report to peoplefrom other cultures Technical competence will get an employee so far, however,only a “ multifaceted engineering candidate that will fare well in today’s corporateenvironment” (Davis, 2004)

Ethical decision–making is the criterion to consider when thinking about rary professional, societal and global issues There are norms and expectations thatshow we are good citizens i.e an individual is accountable for all his/her actions Anengineer’s personal ethics is tested when attention is not paid to the sudden dilemmas(he) is faced with (Davis, 2004)

contempo-Since engineers are “isolated thinkers, focused on small parts of a problem” (Haws,

2001), David Haws in the April 2001 Journal of Engineering Education describes

engineers as “convergent thinkers” He pointed out that considering options and pacts on a large scale (i.e seeing the big picture) is regarded as “divergent thinking”

im-In other words, ethical behavior needs divergent thinkers to make sound judgment,since engineers have a major impact on public safety and health (Davis, 2004)

Lifelong Learning

In this changing world of knowledge and information, education is viewed as a lifelongprocess instead of a non–recurring investment Unlike the last century, education inthe 21st century is cross–functional, inter–disciplinary knowledge, and technologicaltraining Davis (2004) observed that corporate employers expect graduates to possessthe knowledge, skills and attitudes of contemporary business concepts

For instance, Focke (2002) advised young engineers to commit to lifelong learning

by continuing their education in depth and in breadth He noted that there aremajor world problems that need desperate solutions and these solutions are not easy

tasks Therefore, finding these solutions will require commitment to lifelong learning.This will not only prepare engineers to use their engineering abilities to find the bestsolutions but will also make engineers better educators in the community (Focke,2002).

Team Membership

Today’s complex workforce requires engineers to solve complicated problems thatneed teamwork skills Companies such as GE, Intel, Motorola, Xerox, Ford and GMare publicly committing to team–based environments With the aid of teamwork,functional roles such as engineering, finance, sales can utilize complementary skills.Thompson (2004) distinguishes three types of teams which are tactical (executes awell–defined plan), problem–solving (resolves problems on an ongoing basis), andcreative (creates something, think out of the box and question assumptions) teams

In summary, some of these skills that were noted to be soft skills discussed byDavis (2004) are similar to the skills ABET requires, (see Appendix A on page 104)that all accredited Engineering programs must demonstrate For example, Criterion3(d),(f),(g),(i), and (j) require engineering programs must demonstrate that studentsattain an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams, a knowledge of contempo-rary issues, an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility, an ability tocommunicate effectively, a recognition of the need for and an ability to engage inlife-long learning Therefore, other leadership skill sets that are not required will bediscussed next

2.1.3 Leadership and Management Roles

Despite the similarities in the definition of leadership, it is very important to tiate between leadership and management Not only is there an existing controversy(Gardner, 1990; Gordon and Yukl, 2004; Kotter, 1990, 1995, 1999; Kotterman, 2006;Yukl, 2002) about the differences between leadership and management but also engi-neers tend to interchange these roles (Carter, 2006) despite the fact that both rolesrequire two different skill sets

differen-Researchers such as Bass, Gardner, Kotter, Kotterman, Mintzberg, Yukl, and leznik agreed that managers were responsible for supervising, planning and organiz-ing, decision making, controlling, consulting and coordinating subordinates Researchshows that unlike leaders, managers have a hectic work life that is disorderly and po-litical Yukl describes a manager’s activity in terms of four primary processes whichare (Yukl, 2002):

Za-1 Developing and maintaining relationships

2 Getting and giving information

3 Making decisions

4 Influencing people

Similar to the definitions of leadership, there has been different definitions of agement Daft (2002) defined management as the “ attainment of organizationalgoals in an effective and efficient manner through planning, organizing, staffing, di-recting and controlling organizational resources.” Management involves stabilization

man-and refinement of procedures man-and facilitates the achievement of objectives (Bass man-andAvolio, 1994; Daft, 2002).

Regardless of the inconsistencies in the definitions of leadership management, thereare key concepts that seem to be constant in all these definitions The key concepts formanagement are planning, organizing, supervising, listening, innovation, controllingorganizational resources and problem solving while the key concepts for leadershipare communication, motivation, visionary and teamwork

In summary, leaders promote change while managers bring order and consistency andeventually promote the status quo (Bass and Avolio, 1994; Daft, 2002; Huszczo, 2004;Yukl, 2002)

Leadership & Why

The American Management Association conducted a survey of 461 executives aboutthe characteristics and skills needed to be an effective leader The study in Table 2.1reported that “communication was overwhelmingly identified as the most importantskill [by 84% of the survey respondents]” (AMA Research, 2003)

Communication skill involves writing, presentation and listening skills These skillsare the building blocks to great leadership Exceptional leaders listen with “activeears” (Blank, 2001), which is a technique known as active listening that requires prac-tice Consequently, the more communication, the better equipped followers become

to do their work, which is a significant source of development

Table 2.1: Leadership Skills—[Adapted from AMA Research (2003)]

An interview panel was conducted on leadership at a workshop by King-Rowley,Goetschel, Casey, Sonnonstine and Graham (2001) The advice from panel membersimplied that communication skill is extremely important The panel members admitthat the proportions of task, behavior, and direction–setting skills increases as thelevel of responsibility increases Some of these responsibilities include mentoring,articulating vision and self-awareness (King-Rowley et al., 2001) Also, Sabatini andKnox (1999) defined “a great leader effectively communicates a higher vision, and,through personal commitment, integrity, compassion, and support, motivates others

to sacrificially, decisively and innovatively pursue common goals.”

2.1.5 What does leadership mean in an engineering context?

The general notion about leadership in the business world is “Managers manageresources and leaders lead people” (Carter, 2006) In light of this, Favreau definedleadership as the “ability to get something done, by someone else” (Carter, 2006).Favreau believes that a good leader fosters an environment where followers prosper,enabling them to buy–in to the vision and objectives of the leader

However, Carter (2006) noted that engineering companies such as Agilent Inc, defines

leadership as an individual with technical skills performing in team leadership roles asmentors in a cross–functional team (Business Wire, 2005) Farris and Cordero (2002)observed that engineering companies shifted from the “ command–and–control role

to the leadership role” Based on the survey, Farris and Cordero (2002) concluded thatengineering companies are now redefining leadership as assigning broad objectives,and fostering an innovative work environment, challenging work and collaboration

Ex-perts

The critical dimensions of leadership are made up of ideal leadership and ment concepts The definitions of these ideal or prototypical concepts are (WhollyLeadership Terms (WLT), Partial Leadership Terms(PLT), Combined Terms (CoT),Wholly Management Terms (WMT), and Partial Management Terms (PMT)) arebased on research data from surveys of leadership and management from varioussources Examples of such surveys are listed below:

manage-AMA Research (2000a); manage-AMA Research (2000b); manage-AMA Research (2003); AmericanManagement Association (2005) and Harper Jr (2003) discussed important and effec-tive skills for leadership and management The best case would be if research surveysincluded both leadership and management skills in a single survey However, this

is not the case because most research surveys had different objectives, as explainedbelow:

However, there are surveys that cover some sets of skills and so can provide tion regarding a particular skill in terms of leadership or management but not all the

informa-required skill sets for engineers regarding leadership and management.

• AMA Research (2000b)—This survey was used to evaluate the skills and

com-petencies necessary to an organization’s success using a five–point scale Thissurvey is used to rate the importance of the listed skills and competencies to thesuccess of the organization; the prevalence of these skills in current managers;and the direction of change that has been observed in managers over the pastdecade

The listed skills are defined into four categories: conceptual, communication,effectiveness and interpersonal skills For example, some of the survey scale

statements under the communication skill category are “the ability to form ideas into words and actions”, “credibility among colleagues, peers, & subordinates” etc This survey is rated into categories and sub–categories The

trans-answers are in the Likert-type scale discussed below

• AMA Research (2003)—The goal of this survey was to determine the

leader-ship and business challenges that business executives face Included in thissurvey were questions regarding characteristics and skills needed to be an ef-fective leader According to AMA Research, “ communication (84%) wasoverwhelmingly identified as the most important skill Being able to motivateand inspire others (56%), having team building skills (46%), and being a vision-ary (42%) were also top rated skills”

• American Management Association (2005)—This survey was a global study of

leadership now and in the future i.e in 2015 The countries involved in the

study are USA, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Canada, Asia,

and Latin America Some of the questions on the survey included “What do you think are the leadership competencies needed to function effectively today?”,

“How will the needed leadership competencies change over the next ten years?”

(AMA Research, 2003)

The results show the top five competencies that are needed to function effectivetoday as Strategy development (10.96%), Communication Skills (10.06%), De-velopment leaders (6.96%), Business ethics (6.19%), and Fostering Creativity

& Innovation (5.73%) These competencies are just five from a list of twentycompetencies

• Harper Jr (2003)—This survey is an atypical study of leadership in a

ment role of e–Commerce This study involves both leadership and

manage-ment competencies using the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire

(LBDQ) survey For instance, eight questions were used to describe

manage-ment behavior patterns that demonstrate leadership Questions such as ates a vision of e–commerce as a component of the company’s overall IT strat- egy?”, “Inspires people—creates passion for delivering excellent performance through change” (Harper Jr., 2003).

“Cre-The results show that for an e–commerce manager to perform in a leadershiprole competencies such as Communication (85%), Vision (80%), DevelopingEffective Plan (80%), Strategic Processes (80%), Inspiration (70%), and Acting

as a Champion (70%) are important Partial results of Harper Jr (2003)’s

dissertation are summarized in Tables 2.2 - 2.5.

Table 2.2: Survey Data for Leadership [Adapted from Harper Jr (2003)]

Question People Management & Development Survey Respondents

38 Clear Goals using

Table 2.3: Survey Data for People Management & Development [Adapted fromHarper Jr (2003)]

Question Teamwork Survey Respondents

Number Competencies Raw Data Agree Tend to Agree

Table 2.4: Survey Data for Teamwork [Adapted from Harper Jr (2003)]

Question Creativity & Innovation Survey Respondents

Table 2.5: Survey Data for Creativity & Innovation [Adapted from Harper Jr (2003)]

In summary, not only do these surveys have different goals but the categories in thesesurveys are also different However, specific leadership and management competen-cies survey questions outputs similar results Despite the fact that research surveysfor both leadership and management are not included in a single survey, there areinteresting patterns that can be seen For example, communication has been found

to be the most important skill Other skills such as motivation, team building, andvision have been highly rated as leadership skills while coaching & mentoring, timemanagement, listening and innovation has been highly rated as management skills asshown in Figure 2.1

Figure 2.1: Leadership & Management Skill Ratings [Adapted from AMA Research(2003)]

Research shows the importance of what we are using as the ideal concepts of ership and management in Figure 2.1, the raw data from surveys of leadership andmanagement were collected from AMA Research (2003) At this stage, the idealconcepts of leadership and the level of importance of the ideal concepts have beenoutlined in Figure 2.1

Leader-ship

Exploring the critical dimensions of leadership involve classifying the documents intothe five fuzzy linguistic variables The definitions of these ideal or prototypical con-cepts (Wholly Leadership Terms (WLT), Partial Leadership Terms(PLT), CombinedTerms (CoT), Wholly Management Terms (WMT), and Partial Management Terms(PMT)) are based on research data from surveys of leadership and management fromvarious sources, which is discussed in Section 2.1.6 on page 20 Since we know the

ideal concepts of leadership, in order to classify each document into one of the five

fuzzy linguistic terms, a Similarity Measure is calculated, which will be discussed in

combina-The ideal concepts were first determined using data from research experts, which isshown in Figure 2.1 Figures 2.2 and 2.3 were researched data that determines the

Figure 2.2: Ideal Concepts of Managementlevel of importance for WMT and WLT respectively Based on Figures 2.2 – 2.5, thelevel of importance of PMT, CoT, and PLT were determined.

Figure 2.3: Ideal Concepts of Leadership

Before the discussion of how the level of importance of PMT, CoT, and PLT weredetermined, the need for an overview of different classification methods is important

Figure 2.4: Partial Management Concepts

Figure 2.5: Partial Leadership ConceptsUsing the appropriate classification method, the level of importance of PMT, CoT,and PLT was calculated The overview is discussed next